Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Was it a stitch-up?

Conspiracy theories that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a
politically-motivated set-up gained ground after it emerged that the first
person to break the news of his arrest was an activist in Nicolas Sarkozy’s
UMP party.

Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair, an American-French television journalistPhoto: Reuters

By Our Foreign Staff

11:57AM BST 16 May 2011

Jonathan Pinet, a political science student, tweeted the news of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest before it had even happened, according to Le Post, a French newspaper.

Meanwhile the first person to re-tweet Mr Pinet was Arnaud Dassier, a spin doctor who had been previously involved in publicising the details of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s luxurious lifestyle.

The first website to break the news, meanwhile, was the French right-wing news blog, 24heuresactu.

Some have suggested Mr Strauss-Kahn could also have been stitched up by his rivals inside the International Monetary Fund, as well as by rivals within the French political establishment.

Mr Pinet immediately denied that he was part of a right-wing plot against Mr Strauss-Kahn, merely saying that he was told the news by a friend of his working at the Sofitel hotel.

Nevertheless, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s supporters seized on the news. “I am convinced it is an international conspiracy," said Michelle Sabban, a senior councillor for the greater Paris region and a Strauss-Kahn loyalist.

"It's the IMF they wanted to decapitate, not so much the Socialist primary candidate," she said. "It's not like him. Everyone knows that his weakness is seduction, women. That's how they got him."

And some of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s rivals also found it hard to believe the news.

“It is totally hallucinatory. If it is true, this would be a historic moment, but in the negative sense, for French political life," said Dominique Paille, a political rival to Strauss-Kahn on the center right, on BFM television. Still, he urged, "I hope that everyone respects the presumption of innocence. I cannot manage to believe this affair."

"We cannot rule out the thought of a trap," Henri de Raincourt, minister for overseas co-operation in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, said in a broadcast interview.

"I refuse to have a personal opinion and say, 'Yes it was a trap,' or 'No, it wasn't a trap.' I don't know," he said.

"I note that this has happened just after the affair of the car and the suit in a short space of time," he added, referring to sniping at the socialist presidential hopeful for using a Porsche and wearing tailor-made clothes.

"I am not ruling anything out," Raincourt added. "If this turns out to have been a trap, let me tell you that it would not be to the credit of those who set it."

Francois Hollande, the former Socialist party chief, said: "To commit an act of such seriousness, this does not resemble the man I know."